


creature comfort

by politicalmedievalistnerd



Series: Harry Potter Expanded Universe [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 70s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alisha Chase (OC), Amy Brown (OC), Angus Goyle (OC), Bartemius Crouch Jr - Freeform, Bertram Aubrey - Freeform, Canonical Child Abuse, Catherine Roshfinger (OC), Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Neglect, Consensual Underage Sex, Corban Yaxley - Freeform, Dale Roshfinger (OC), Depression, Eileen Prince - Freeform, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Ephraim Gibbon (OC), Evan Rosier - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lucius Malfoy - Freeform, M/M, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era, Matthew Mulciber (OC), Mental Health Issues, Multiple Pairings, Other, POV Multiple, Period-Typical Homophobia, Physical Abuse, Racism, References to Drugs, Renner Filch (OC), Self-Harm, Sexism, Sexist Language, Silas Selwyn (OC), Slurs, Slut Shaming, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenage Rebellion, Thorfinn Rowle - Freeform, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, Verbal Abuse, War, spousal abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-05-31 16:05:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15123011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmedievalistnerd/pseuds/politicalmedievalistnerd
Summary: 1975-1978. A dark cloud is brewing both inside and out of Hogwarts, and in the midst of growing up, external forces could push these teens to the edge. Title & Chapter Titles (alongside rough inspiration) taken from 'Creature Comfort' by Arcade Fire.





	1. some boys hate themselves

Summer 1975

Duct tape. Another thing his parents would dismiss as horribly unnecessary and, even worse than that,  _ stupid.  _ If they found out it was a muggle thing, at least. Otherwise, it was a great ‘transportable sticking charm! How convenient!’ Then again, they wouldn’t be impressed by its uses. Three girls in bikinis, pouting, posing on motorcycles, a photo he took of Remus and James and Peter, the first joint he rolled (James had a thing for memories, he soon realised, after it was snatched out of his hand before he could take a commemorative  _ puff _ ) and a ripped-out page of his muggle studies textbook, with a highlighted passage (courtesy of Remus’ stationery, because Sirius was lucky if he bought a quill to class half the time) saying  _ ‘Muggles, it seems, may not be so distant in our family tree’.  _

 

Sirius lounged back on his bed. From here - frustratingly - the stupid chandelier his mother insisted looked ‘so handsome’ swung back and forth, flames flickering. It just added to the heat of the room, in combination with the fireplace, which crackled and  _ popped.  _ If not for the sweltering heat, perhaps he could shut his eyes and pretend he was in Gryffindor tower somewhere. That was the feel he was going for, with his scarf and beanie dangling off a coatrack, a few of his ties twisted around his doorknobs. He exhaled. Another great muggle invention -  _ cigarettes.  _ Sure, wizards had their special herbs and pipes and such but there was something about  _ simple fucking tobacco  _ that got him off. When he’d first heard of it, he’d interrogated Evans - who surprisingly, listened to him - but she’d immediately gone off.  _ “It’s a bad habit,”  _ she hissed, folding her arms across your chest.  _ “You’re what - fifteen? I’m not giving you anything, I’m not endorsing it, no way. You’re out of your mind, Black!”  _ But Marlene McKinnon was a half-blood and slipped him some rollies and owled him more. He lived for the weekly packets in exchange for the five or six galleons she craved.  _ “Wizard tutoring ain’t fucking cheap and muggle tutors are useless to me,”  _ she’d scowl. 

 

He blew out a long trail of smoke. The next muggle thing he wanted his hands on was a record player. He could only imagine the look on his mother’s face if he began blasting muggle rock as loudly as it could go. Marlene’s brother had one, and she sent him a photo of it, where the black disk spun slightly as the needle ran over it. Actually, Marlene’s owl from the previous day had only had pictures; that photo and one of her (taken by Lily, it said on the back) standing beneath a tree. She’d chopped off her auburn locks so they sat in a curly bob, and gotten new yellow flares. She was pretty, Sirius couldn’t deny her that, and it’d lead to a couple of kisses. He thumbed Marlene’s face in the picture, as it broke into a laugh. Spinner’s End, he recalled, was where Lily lived, and where Marlene spent half her time. Upon learning that, he had repeated it to James.  _ “A muggle neighbourhood,”  _ he’d repeated.  _ “D’you think her house doesn’t have wards, then?”  _ Remus had broken in at that point and said he’d personally report any stalking, but James had turned red and shook his head emphatically.  _ “I mean, like, there’s lots of shitty people around these days. Do muggles really not think about getting attacked?”  _ It had unsettled them all, until Peter pointed out that lots of muggles kept guns, or the equivalents of beaters’ bats. James and Sirius took Muggle Studies as well as Peter, but Sirius had done it only to give his mother a heart attack and no matter how hard James tried, he always got confused by the stupidest things. It was a miracle he could work a record player.

 

Sirius missed Marlene. He missed all of them, really. The other day he had nearly convinced his mother to let him go to the Potters’ house, until she perused the Sacred 28 and thumped it on his bed a couple of times.  _ “Purebloods, yes, hmm, but blood traitors all the same?”  _ Sometimes he could get her to overlook it, or kick up a fight until she insisted he get out, because  _ what would he do to poor little Regulus?  _ As if he’d influence his brother, the stupid dick. There was scarcely two years between them but often it felt like more. Regulus had only just finished his third year and was already tacking up newspaper articles of some of the muggle disappearances, a photograph of Bellatrix’s dark mark as she pulled her sleeve up. The last time Sirius had gone in there, nearly a week ago, Regulus had been curled up by a chair, pouring over a pamphlet Sirius had seen passed around too often. “What the fuck are you reading?” he’d growled, and Regulus had had fire in his eyes, pushing his knees up closer to his chest. “Go away,” the little brother had demanded. 

 

“I  _ said, _ ” Sirius had replied, drawing himself up to full height, maybe not realising he stood the same way his father did, “what the  _ fuck  _ are you-”   
“Go away!” Regulus yelled, voice cracking, knuckles turning white. The air seemed to hum, as if it was alive, crackling. A family photo, from years before, began to shake, rattling against the wall, and Regulus kept his eyes fierce, and Sirius already found himself stepping forward,  _ what do you do when you’re scared,  _ and thought of his parents, never scared - thought of James - raised his hand -

 

_ Crack.  _ Walburga had beat him to it, whipping him around the head, throwing him backwards. He’d been barred from entering the other bedroom since. Not for the first time, a pang of envy ran through him - he was the only one of his friends’ little gang to be cursed with a little brother. James and Remus were only children, and Peter’s elder sister had been working in Germany since he was five, normally only returning for Christmas and Easter and a visit or two over the summer. Late at night one time, there’d been a mention of an older brother, too, who caught Scrofungulus alongside Peter. Peter had gotten through it. Sirius hadn’t known what to say, and let it be. Now that they all knew about Remus’ little problem, it was Peter who was the most private, and Sirius had come to accept it. He thought of Bellatrix, when they were young, and how they’d smiled for one of the first photos the Black family had permitted, and she’d hugged him so tightly he practically suffocated. Things could look different to the truth.

 

He coughed, a little, and realised a cloud of smoke was building. He’d have to get up and open the window soon. Soon.

 

Summer 1975

His long, crooked fingers brushed over the edge of the cauldron. He could still hear his mother’s groans in the adjacent room. Tobias Snape, of course, was nowhere to be found. The muggle left as soon as he could justify it, for another round at the pub. What could you expect for someone of that type? A few strands of long, greasy dark hair skimmed his cheekbones. Grumbling came from his stomach. It was one of the things he missed about Hogwarts; at home, he was never really full. And his blood - his muggle blood, it lurked in all the bad corners of the house, often stinking like shitty beer. The rats were friendlier, even when they turned the size of cats and bared their teeth. They never went for his mother, at least.

 

His eyes stung. Half the time - more than half the time - as he brewed this same old healing potion, he desperately wished he could brew something different. In days like these all sorts of books were passed around the Slytherin common room, some of which slipped into his hands. In thick dark ink, it told him how to poison, torture, turn insane. It made him tremble. In the late hours of the evening he imagined Tobias Snape’s face contorting in pain as he chugged the ‘ _ another fucking beer!’  _ he ordered from his wife or son. Imagined him gagging. Swaying. Falling to the ground. Choking on bubbles of blood, face turning purple, eyes bulging. His mother would cry, of course, out of shock more than anything. But still, he put rosemary in instead of lavender and stirred it counter-clockwise. A healing potion, not a harming potion.

 

Sometimes, when he caught sight of himself in a mirror, in the toilets at the park or at school or when he went to Lily’s, he saw the large nose and dark hair that marked himself as a  _ Snape,  _ as his father through and through and through. Even now he could see his wrists and the veins held within them, pulsing blue and purple. A constant reminder of  _ muggle,  _ of the brute that sired him.  _ Half-blood,  _ that’s what he was, half horrid and half perfect, half magic and half muggle. He locked his elbow, stirring, stirring, stirring. 

 

“Nearly finished, Mother!” he called, still squatting. Slowly, bubbles rose to the surface, popping and snapping. A tiny bit leaked over the side, dribbling down to the gritty orange carpet that covered the ancient floorboards. It wasn’t unusual for his dinghy room. Purple and green splatters by far outnumbered the threads of crusted sunset. White wallpaper from the 50s was beginning to curl off the walls. It scarcely contained enough room for a single bed and a tiny desk, and Severus had made his place in the tiny square of floor between them, back against the door. His back was beginning to gain a hunch. 

 

Gently, he opened the one desk drawer that hadn’t yet rotted away and pulled it. Inside was his wand, a handful of school books and a couple of pictures. His long, skinny fingers rummaged through, one locking around his wand and two others pinching at a photograph. The hornbeam wand rolled into his lap and the photo crumpled slightly. He drew a quick breath and quickly smoothed it out with his thumb, momentarily abandoning the potion. It was a picture of Lily, unsurprisingly; nearly three-quarters of the photos he kept were. A small, foreign smile flickered across his face. It was from the summer before, and picture her outstretched on the grass, red hair flapping gracefully in the wind. She turned to him, laughing, white teeth catching in the slits of sunlight that fell across the scape of a late afternoon. He could almost hear her, if he concentrated.  _ “Sev! Gosh, you’re making me feel like a model, the amount of photos you’re taking. Can’t I have one of you?!”  _ And after the flash ended she launched upwards, throwing her arms around his waist, pushing him against the tree. His heart had hammered in his chest and she wrenched the camera off him, grinning and waving it above her head before taking off down the hill. 

 

Steam rose from the small green bubbles scraping across the top of the potion. Severus’ attention quickly returned to the task at hand. Small droplets ran up the side of the cauldron in a perverse twist on the muggle reality.  Deftly, he grabbed a small vial and held it upside-down, letting the thick liquid rise into the glass. His dark eyes locked on the small, white crack that marked the fill point. A cork waited between his forefinger and thumb. More dripped upwards. Finally, he capped it, and very, very gently, put a lid on the cauldron.

 

Out of habit, his footsteps were light. Toe-walking. Holed socks wrapped around his feet, breaking the intensity of skin against wood. The clutched the vial very, very tightly in his hand, and edged towards the other bedroom. Eileen Snape -  _ Prince,  _ he reminded himself, for the name ‘Snape’ held no great attraction for mother nor child - lay in bed, a torn white sheet covering her naked legs. Blood was pooling from a scratch on her calf. He withdrew the wand he’d hidden in his pocket, and muttered a cleaning spell, more often used by housewives than teenage boys. Severus was always the exception. The colour drained from the bedspread, and he crept closer to the ailing woman. Beads of sweat illuminated her long, pale face.

 

“Sev,” she whispered, stretching out her long fingers. He shut his eyes tightly, and passed the potion into her hands.

“It should help,” he whispered back. Even when He was not in the house, they whispered. They couldn’t risk Him hearing. It was just how things had to be.

 

Summer 1975

At least he wasn’t a vampire. Then, he figured, he wouldn’t be able to see himself in the mirror, or go out in sunlight. It was the little things that he had to be grateful for, his mother said. It made sense. Her name was ‘Hope’, after all. Of course she tried to be optimistic. Remus Lupin stared at his reflection, hands on either side of the sink, trying not to tremble. It wasn’t life-threatening. Things would get better for her. The Healers said there was a chance. If they had more galleons, maybe they could get her better treatment. Best to see if they could find some. He wanted to scream. To smash his hands into the glass. To apologise. If not for him, they’d have the money. His mother would be well. She didn’t deserve any of this. She didn’t have a drop of magical blood in her body. Only through exposure to magical beings had she even caught the disease. He wanted to puke. Maybe he would puke. He was puking. 

 

His guts emptied themselves onto his hands, down the sink, and his fingers turned red as he twisted the water on, gripping the tap so hard his knuckles wanted to break. Words haunted him and settled beneath his eyes, churning until they became dark bags that refused to let him sleep.  _ “My mother is sick,”  _ he had told them, so gamely, the perfect excuse though they lived miles from Hogsmeade, miles from anybody at all. And now it wasn’t a lie at all, maybe he should’ve taken Divination. 

 

And it was his fault. If she died, it would be his fault. Without doubt. They had gone to such lengths to stop him from murdering anyone that he was going to end up murdering her. Part of his spirit walked out of the room, freeing itself from his body, striding to his father and begging he be withdrawn from Hogwarts. Not a single knut would go towards robes or books or school supplies, instead going into the funds they needed to save his mother. That was the Gryffindor in him. The other part, the weakest part, continued to look into the mirror, frozen to the spot.

 

He raised one hand. It didn’t matter what he did, exactly, just that it reduced the burden. His parents could have other children, but he would never have another mother. There was only one chance. His aloft hand fell, down to the drawers, unlocking them quickly. He continued to stare.  _ Name yourself. Werewolf. Werewolf. Werewolf.  _ The beastly name pounded at the back of his skull, glancing at the growing moon and wanting to get in, to take over.  _ Werewolf.  _ The object fell into the palm of his hand, quite literally. His hand closed around it and laid it down.  _ It would be so easy,  _ he thought. He pinched the blade between his forefinger and thumb, trying not to tremble.  _ It would be easier,  _ he thought. 

 

A knock sounded on the slightly-rotted bathroom door, and Remus dropped the blade with a  _ clang.  _ Lyall Lupin now stood in the frame, tall and lanky, his head near scraping the roof. He wore wizard’s robes, patched at the elbows, and a sour look. The man looked from his son to the sink, and back again, dark eyes impenetrable.

“Shaving?”

“Yes, father.”   
“Right.” He pressed his lips together. They both knew he had not been shaving. “Dinner is nearly ready. I expect you in ten.” He disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, though left the door open. Remus’ gaze fell to the sink.  _ I’d best pack,  _ he thought. There were only seven days until September, and he was hardly going to do a Sirius and beg for socks on the train (for the attempt last year had resulted in Peter giving him two pairs, James gagging him with a sock, Remus admonishing him for not packing his own, Lily Evans offering her spare pair of bright pink stockings, and Alice Rhysfield suggesting he learn to knit, and advising him that she would be holding classes). 

 

Remus walked softly down the hall, as he and his father had taken to doing for fear of waking his mother at an inopportune time. She never raised a word of complaint, and had even let him have James and Peter over earlier in the holidays, but the waves of migraines that came in the days after were punishment enough. He left his door ajar, for his father’s sake more than anything, and knelt. He started by collecting the books strewn across his floor, organising them by subject. Then came a hunt for spare inkpots. He would order ink by owl, later, but pots were harder to obtain. He had found a red one, reading on the bottom ‘ _ J. Potter’,  _ and thrust it into his trunk when his father called him for dinner. 

 

His mother had come down for dinner, and sat in an armchair dragged over to the table. She was deathly pale and gaunt, with dark shadows beneath her eyes and a loose, threadbare blanket thrown over her. She smiled broadly though. “Remus,” she breathed, voice hardly above a whisper. “We received an owl.” Her hands shook, and she held her arms out, open, shifting the blanket to one side. Remus’ throat burned, but he went to her and hugged her anyway. She patted his cheek and kissed him, tears bubbling in the corners of her eyes. 

  
“Yes, son,” his father confirmed. Remus was released from the hug, and he turned to see a letter offered to him. It was his Hogwarts letter, with the booklists and whatever other notes needed to be signed. Excitement brewed in the pit of his stomach, but rationality got the better of him.  _ No. You’re friends with James and Sirius, you mastermind half their pranks and even do your own. Dumbledore isn’t stupid.  _

 

Or maybe he was, because it said, in bright green ink,  _ ‘prefect’,  _ and his mother’s eyes were brimming with tears of pride, and a small, red badge slipped out into his hand, seven letters etched into the metal. His heart raced. Not only was he a prankster, but a werewolf. He was already painfully aware of the unlikelihood of him getting a job, or any sort of life (and did his best not to hate his father for it).  _ Prefect  _ was another unattainable thing. When he really thought about it, though, he guessed that there hadn’t been much choice - that must’ve been the reason. Had there been someone better,  _ real  _ competition, they never would’ve given it to a werewolf. He was surprised it hadn’t gone to Peter. He wasn’t the cleverest, but he was always eager to please.

 

“Don’t overthink it,” his father commanded, voice hard. “Just know that we’re proud of you.”   
“So proud, my baby boy,” his mother added, voice trembling. “Despite everything else,  _ prefect  _ really says something. Doesn’t it, Lyall? Tell him. Everything will be okay. Tell him, Lyall.”

Remus ran his finger over the letters.  _ Prefect.  _ He heard his father take a breath, and his back was thumped thrice, in some attempt at good-natured, easy-going father-son bonding.  _ Prefect.  _ This changed everything. 


	2. spend their lives resenting their fathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James' trunk is PRIVATE, thanks, Sirius messes with a muggle, and Severus sits in on the Slytherin equivalent of the boys' locker room.

September 1st, 1975

“I’m packed, aight? I got my robes and quills and a few books and my broom, what else do I need?” James Potter stood at the top of the stairs, holding his broom tightly, dressed in a loose Gryffindor sweater and white jeans. His aging father, Fleamont, stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking rather vexed. The clock read nine-thirty from where it hung on the cream wallpaper. 

“James, it’s your O.W.L year. We need to make sure you have all your books, and all your things. We aren’t having you go without, not for a moment,” his father reasoned. James made a show of rolling his eyes, picking up his trunk, and striding down the first three steps without a care in the world. 

 

“James,” his father repeated, stepping up one. “You aren’t in trouble. If you go back and double check, everything will be alright. You deserve some privacy, we don’t want to go through your trunk. We just want you to be prepared.”

James made a face. “I appreciate it, Dad, but I double-checked earlier. If I forgot anything, you can just owl it to me.” He claimed two more steps before his father advanced by one, like opposing pieces in a game of chess. James huffed. He was planning on meeting Peter early at the station, so they could get a good compartment, check out all the pretty girls while they were on the platform and try to get food off the trolley lady early. Sirius was meant to be getting there earlier too, but James wasn’t holding his breath on seeing his mate any time before eleven, thanks to his bitch of a mother.

  
“It’s about responsibility. We know you wanted to be prefect -”   
“No, I didn’t. Prefects have sticks up their ass.” His dad cracked a smile, and then immediately tried to hide it. James took advantage of the lapse in sternness and got down four more steps, now only one away from the older man. 

“You should probably talk more kindly about them, James. Didn’t you say that girl you’re sweet on might’ve been made a prefect?”

“Maybe, but that’s different. Even if she was, she wouldn’t be working for The Man. Not like those gits from Slytherin will.”

“Slytherins aren’t inherently bad.”

“Says who? Half the Slytherins are filled with Sirius’ cousins, and they’re all some brand of shitty.”   
“Be careful your mother doesn’t hear you speaking like that.”

 

The two were now face-to-face, with James just topping his father’s height. 

“Don’t make us snoop, James,” the older man said, tiredly. He tapped his cane against the railing, making his point. He was older than most fathers, nearing seventy, older than one of Sirius’ grandparents. To James it often seemed that he had no parents at all, but rather doting grandparents. His real grandparents had died before he could remember, only existing in greyed photographs, faces tinged with surprise and yet happiness. He’d definitely been a surprise baby, his father making potions for everything except fertility, for that was the one thing he couldn’t do. 

 

“I have everything I need,” James said, finally, and sidestepped the old man, knowing he wouldn’t be caught. In the time it took Fleamont to turn around, James was at the bottom of the stairs, rushing through the foyer into his mother’s parlour. His steps echoed through the empty house, bought when his parents were young and hopeful, with half a dozen empty rooms for children that never came. Upon coming home for the summer after his first year at Hogwarts, he had decided his new friends were his brothers, and gotten permission to buy four beds and stick pictures of them up in the empty rooms, so that if they ever stayed over, they would have a place especially for them. It was the closest he got - he had no cousins, either, just him. As a child, the manor had seemed so absurdly large, to be utterly without people. He had gotten his mother to do spells to hide his toys around the house, and then he would seek them out in a crude echo of the game for child _ ren,  _ not  _ a  _ child. His mother had too many aching joints to chase him about and his father slept through the days more often than not. It was a house for old people, not for him. Hogwarts was his home.

 

He burst into his mother’s favourite room, where she spent most her days listening to the wireless, occasionally entertaining old school friends or, on rare occasions, her cousins whom she could hardly bear to see for all their children. He had met his second cousins once, a crop of gingers at Hogwarts before he was alive. Today, Euphemia lounged in a floral chair, sipping tea out of a delicate cup patterned with red roses. Upon hearing him, she sat up suddenly, almost spilling the warm drink onto her long white skirt.

 

“Jamie,” she gushed, reaching out a hand, bracelets clattering on her wrist. “What’s wrong, Jamie?” He leaned his broom against a bare part of the wall, laid his trunk down beside an empty chair and flopped into it. The room had been soundproofed, and no words could get in or out. She poured her son a cup of tea and slid it across the coffee table to him. A fire weakly crackled in the corner. 

 

“Dad doesn’t believe that I’ve packed everything. He wants to check,” James said, taking a sip of the drink. 

Euphemia leaned forward, now keen on the conversation. “Have you packed everything, Jamie?”

“Yeah.”

“Why doesn’t he believe you, then?” she asked softly, blinking her big brown eyes. James looked at the ceiling and shrugged.

“I dunno.”

“Jamie,” his mother said, raising her eyebrows and pouting. “You’re a clever boy. Why wouldn’t he take your word?”

“I guess,” he shifted in his seat, “sometimes I guess I...don’t pack stuff.”

“Mmm,” his mother raised the rim of her teacup to her painted pink lips. “And why don’t you?”

James made a face. “I dunno. I don’t need to, I guess. Like, what’s the point? Anyway, Ma, when are we booking? I promised Peter I’d meet him early.”

“Soon, Jamie,” she assured him. “Why don’t you feel you need to?”

 

The door opened, and Fleamont poked his head in, cheeks red. “James,” he said sternly. “I need to check it.”

“Oh, go on, Jamie,” his mother said. “Best to get it over with.”

He lifted up the trunk, carefully placed it on the low wooden table, and unbuckled it, lifting the lid. An extension charm had worked wonders. Piles of magazines, fourteen or fifteen issues high, were squashed between poorly-folded sweaters and robes. There were at least three pairs of boots and only one pair of school shoes, not quite matching, for one had red laces and one has gold. His parents both stood, now, peering into the depths of their son’s priorities.

 

“Must you really take these to school?” his father asked, gingerly picking up an exemplar magazine. It was the latest copy of ‘ _ Playwitch’ _ , and the front cover gave the elderly man much more information than he cared to know. A witch with golden, feathery hair posed on the cover in a set of black robes, unbuttoned down the middle. Her sunkissed skin glowed orange through the sheer bodysuit she donned. “I hardly think this will aid your learning.”   
“Dad,” James blanched, ripping the magazine out of his father’s hands and tossing it back into the trunk. 

“What’s this?” Euphemia asked, holding up a small square. James lunged towards her, and Fleamont folded his arms across his chest.

 

“James,” he said. “You’re not sixteen until March. I see no reason for you to be packing this until Christmas, at least. Besides, you’re at school. To study. Not to-” he gestured to the foil, “-fornicate.”

“Dad.”

“I understand you’re a growing boy, and these days, things are a lot - erm -  _ looser - _ ”

“Dad!” James’ face bloomed red, though he still forced a smile, doing his best impression of being easy-going. At this very moment, he was supposed to be relaxing and seeing if any girls had gotten hot over the summer, not having a conversation about  _ sex  _ with his ancient father. The last time things had been so - so  _ like that - _ had been the summer between his second and third year when his father told him all about being a man and he had nearly died of embarrassment  _ (really -  _ he was certain, for that next year, that his boggart would be his father coughing, and then saying the word ‘penis’). 

 

It looked like his new boggart would be his dad holding up a condom.  _ “Looser.”  _ He shuddered. “Would it kill you to stop snooping?”

“Jamie,” his mother’s voice wobbled. “If you’re going to be doing these sorts of things, we just -”

“You’re too young,” Fleamont cut in. “It’s illegal. We’ll talk when you’re sixteen and not a moment before. You know my parents had me wait until I was wedded in the eyes of the Lord, and your mother had the same rules. There are some radical views out there, and whilst we understand the times are changing, we want you to stick to your principles. Our family’s principles.”

“It’s not the 1900s anymore, Dad,” James snapped, leaning against the couch. One hand mussed his hair and the other fingered the loop of his jeans. His parents were hardly purists, but some of their other ideas were so  _ annoying.  _ Euphemia had nearly fainted when they took him to the train and she saw that the hemlines had been lifted on the girls’ skirts, and that they now paired it with a blouse instead of it being a proper dress. “Can we go? We’re gonna be late.”

 

September 1st, 1975

Even from here, he could see the white of his mother’s knuckles as she tightly clutched Regulus’ shoulder. They were weaving through crowds of people at King’s Cross Station, and Mrs. Black seemed convinced that the tighter she held onto her youngest son, the less likely he would be to come into contact with some muggle. His father, Mr. Black, pushed Regulus’ trolley with gritted teeth. They would need to wait until they got to the Platform for Kreacher to be summoned, and so his father was forced to do a house-elf’s work. Sirius trailed behind them, pushing his own trolley, looking around keenly. Only a few times a year was he permitted to see non-magic people, and here they were in their hundreds, doing their muggle-y things. It was amazing. 

 

Two girls poured over a map, yelling at it, even though they knew it wouldn’t answer back. Because it was a  muggle  map. Muggle men in suits strode along, with briefcases that really only were brief, because there were no extension charms. A woman rummaged in her handbag and her hand hit the bottom; she yelped and pulled back. Here they weren’t hunting magical people, there were no pitchforks, no diseases. They were just  _ existing  _ in the same space that the Black family was, and in some way, to Sirius, that felt like a win.

 

Mrs. Black now had two hands gripping her favoured son’s shoulders, and held him close. “We’ll be there soon,” she whispered soothingly. Mr. Black appropriately wrinkled his nose as a muggle man approached them, inquiring if they needed any help, and shook his head and hurried away. Only Sirius stopped, with a grin.

“Sir,” he said, straightening up. The rattle of Regulus’ trolley stopped abruptly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father stopped, rage blooming on his face.

“Are you needing any assistance, young man?” The muggle asked, frowning slightly, brows creasing.

“I was just wondering if you knew how to get onto the platform,” Sirius replied, smile growing wider. He could see that his mother and Regulus had stopped too. There was practically smoke coming out of Mrs. Black’s ears, and Regulus just stared, like the situation was some set of runes he hadn’t yet learned.

“And what platform might that be?”

“Nine and three quarters, sir.”

“Huh.” The muggle man was taller than him, albeit not by much, and pressed his lips together. “I’m having none of that, boy. That’s your family over there, yes? Go ask them if they want you on the bloody platform.”

“So you can’t tell me how to get onto the platform is, sir?”

“I’m not on any of that shit. Don’t go looking for it here. We kick any shady types right off. Off you go! Go catch up with your mother before I tell her what you’re asking after!” The muggle shook a fist, and took all of Sirius’ might not to laugh until he had run off and regrouped with his family. Mrs. Black’s lips were tightly pursed, and she looked rather close to exploding.

 

“Sirius,” she said harshly, “what was that? What reason had you for talking to that -  _ thing _ ?” Mr. Black was silent, and would not so much as look at his eldest son, but mother and brother watched curiously. Sirius smirked, exhaling quickly in a half-laugh.

“I was simply ensuring the Statute of Secrecy was working, mother dearest. You know how I’d hate for our secret to get out,” he drawled. “I asked if he knew about the platform, and he didn’t know the one I had in mind. So, all is well. Yeah?”

 

Mrs. Black looked as though she might strangle him, with her dark eyes blazing. Her long, spidery digits massaged Regulus’ shoulders, cracking the bones. “You idiot,” she hissed. “Either you’re twice as stupid as I think you are or more clever by half, and one is as bad as the other. That is  _ not  _ how it works. What do they teach you in History of Magic? When I was at school we spent hours studying the law. I suppose Regulus is learning, though, so it’s not that school, it’s you. Gryffindors. You’ve no ambition, no talent, no sense of kin. You think those little boys you run with are your family!” Sirius tuned out as she launched into a full lecture on how he ought to consider hanging out with Potters and Pettigrews, given their ‘ _ awful’  _ history, and how Mr. Lupin was the most talentless man at the Ministry. It wasn’t the first time he had heard the nonsense, and by now he knew not to put any stock in it. His ears burned, however, and he longed to backchat, to call her a bitch and a purist and see how she liked it. 

 

“Shut up!” he snapped eventually, after they had passed platform seven and other magical families could  _ hear  _ her spewing her nonsense and he was beginning to fear they might think he condoned it. “There’s other people around and I don’t want them to think I’m psycho!”

In a moment she had reached out and grabbed his wrist. Her hand wrapped round so tight his fingers already tingled. Her other hand dug into Regulus’ shoulder so hard the younger boy was beginning to struggle against her.

“Mother,” Regulus said, very quietly. “You’re hurting me.”

“They are more likely to think of you as a disrespectful brat who talks back and has no sense of the real world. You think everything’s all neat and cosy because you’re at school. Regulus is younger than you and he  _ already  _ knows what he’s going to do with himself. You should be thankful to be related, to be  _ seen  _ with him and I. It is our shame that we must be seen in your company. Talk again and you will find yourself without an allowance or an invitation home for the holidays.”

 

His father said nothing, but reached out and very lightly brushed his son’s shoulder. Sirius tensed. Mr. Black was very good at tender touches and being a man of few words, to the point that some would dare say Mrs. Black ran the house. Sirius clenched his jaw and desperately searched for a distraction from his father’s breath on the back of his neck. Declan and Connor O’Neill were passing through the barrier, and the Roshfingers were out in full force, with Dale bending over to hear what little Cathy was trying to tell him, and Betty had found Alice Rhysfield, who proudly wore a Head Girl badge. It had gone ten-thirty, and quicker than he could think, more families were appearing to purposefully loiter between platform nine and ten.

 

_ Fuck.  _ The first pinch was through the fabric of his shirt, a twist of the skin, sharp nails digging in. It felt as if his father was trying to tear the skin off him.  _ Focus.  _ He tried to find a nice pair of legs to gaze at. Pretty lips. A nice tan. A new haircut. His skin broke. Lucinda Talkalot was a Slytherin, but she was Quidditch Captain and had nice arms. He’d caught Regulus polishing her especially, where she stood in the Slytherin Quidditch Team photograph. His father released, and continued pushing Regulus’ trolley as though nothing had happened. Sirius’ arm stung to the shithouse. Lucinda Talkalot no longer looked so pretty.

 

A woman of his mother’s age suddenly rushed over, with a young boy in tow. He looked about Hogwarts age, but there was no trunk in sight. Sirius was forced to stand and wait as his mother gossiped with the lady, who turned out to be Mrs. Fawley, an old school friend. Regulus had the knack for such stupid discussions, asking the boy when he would be going to Hogwarts (next year) and what house he hoped to be sorted into (Slytherin, but of course!). Mr. Black nodded in the correct places, and touched a light finger to the back of Sirius’ neck. The boy winced, and pulled a band off his wrist to tie his hair up. Finally, they were spared, as it was their turn to go through the barrier.

 

He and Regulus had to do it together. Not only for the sake of looking normal to the muggles, but to the other wizards and witches as well. There was a definite fracture between him and his family, and even his mother would be forced to admit, in time, that her bandaging was not working. Already she had ceased rousing on them for arguing and merely asked that they didn’t do it in public. The two stood side by side, careful not to meet the other’s eye, and walked very slowly towards their target. Mrs. Black’s hand flapped at them, and she mouthed something that Sirius couldn’t make out.

 

Regulus could. The younger turned to the elder, and smiled. “Mother will skin you if she sees that poster of a muttersickle in your room. I’m not really inclined to stop her.”

This was to be an imitation of friendly conversation, then. Sirius smiled back. “I’ll care more if you can say it right, dipshit.” They continued walking towards the barrier, trying to appear without purpose.

“I don’t want to speak words like that,” Regulus said. “And you should be worried.”

“You’ve got jack on me, Reg. You couldn’t find my stash if I gave you a fuckin’ map. Mother hates me besides.”

Regulus sighed. “She doesn’t  _ hate  _ you. She worries. We all do, Sirius. You got in Gryffindor, which is shitty, but there can be some good people in there. You just ended up with shitty people. We don’t want you going down the wrong path and being influenced by mudbloods and blood traitors.”

 

Sirius’ blood boiled. “Call someone a mudblood again, and the moment we get on the train I’ll fucking hex your tongue out and shove it up your ass, you grody cunt.”

Regulus sniffed. “Just come along to a meeting, okay? They normally don’t let Gryffindors in, but they’ll let you, you’re a Black. If you like it we can maybe even wing to get the Potter boy in, if he can prove he’s not like his family.”

“ _ That’s  _ what you got out of it?” Sirius demanded. The barrier was approaching quickly. “Sorry, Reg, I’m not a purist dickbag like you, and neither are my friends.”   
“Sirius,” Regulus urged. “Time’s are changing. You can read, can’t you? Read the Prophet. There’s killings once a week, at least, and it’s never our kind at the receiving end. It’s dangerous, and frankly stupid, to be anything else. You’re risking your neck. We’re the only Black boys left; we can hardly risk our necks by being on the wrong side. Even if you’re stupid in the head, just  _ pretend.  _ Some guys do that and nobody says shit about it.”   
“Fuck off, Reg. Talk to me at school and I’ll cut off your balls.” They disappeared through the wall and emerged onto the crowded platform.

 

September 1st, 1975

Severus pressed his face to the glass, shuffling over as another boy entered. Matthew Mulciber had claimed the compartment for them, and when he saw Severus wandering aimlessly down the train corridor, he had called him in. Two burly sixth years, Bertram Aubrey and Evan Rosier, sat squishing Barty Crouch between them. Corban Yaxley had just shouldered his way in, and shooed Severus to the side to sit down.

“What is  _ that _ doing here?” Yaxley asked with disgust, nodding his head towards the second year. Crouch wriggled in his seat.

“I’m going to be a Death Eater!” 

Aubrey burst into laughter, but Mulciber reached out and ruffled the young boy’s hair affectionately. “Nah, you won’t be,” Mulciber grinned. “They’ll be no more Death Eaters then. There’ll be us, the important people, and the slaves.”   
“Who’s gettin’ slaves?” Selwyn demanded as he entered. “I bags the Head Girl, so I can use her all I want.”

“Don’t be such a pervert, Silas,” Mulciber barked. Since Macnair’s graduation the year before, he had taken over the group. “You can’t fuck a mudblood. They’ll give you some fucking disease or some shit.”

“Whatever.” Selwyn flopped down into a seat. “Where’s Wilkes? I’d say getting blown but his pretty girlfriend is waiting for marriage and his slut graduated last year. What’s her name?”

“You mean Val? She’s gonna breed a lot of little purebloods, I’ll bet,” Yaxley snorted. Crouch’s eyes gleamed as he grasped at a conversation he didn’t quite understand. “Anyway, he’s in a dumbass meeting ‘cause he’s a prefect, remember? He’ll join us later.”

 

“Is that really the plan?” Severus asked softly. Only here did he feel he could talk freely, without being smacked or mocked or kicked to the curb. It was as if he had found people of his own kind. People who  _ understood.  _ The only good thing to come out of a muggle was Lily Evans, and it was astonishing, when you looked at people like his father. Muggles. What purpose did they serve? They were lazy wifebeaters and whores who only looked to trample magicfolk. His father punched the magic out of his mother one day at a time to the point she could hardly summon a cup of tea for herself. “Slaves?”

 

“Dunno,” Mulciber admitted. “We already have house-elves, but mudbloods might be a bit smarter. Get them to do our taxes or some shit, I dunno. Maybe,” he added with a smile, “we should get the boys to ask for us.” He looked around. “This place sound-proofed.”

Severus’ stomach stirred, and he pulled out his wand, rolling up his sleeves. It had been a long summer, and after the local pub shut down in August because the barman went to jail, He had hung around a lot more. This was Severus’ jewel of his creations so far.  _ “Muffliato,”  _ he whispered, waving his wand. Something in the air changed - the corridor grew more silent, and they had the sense that they were alone.

 

“Woah,” said Ephraim Gibbon. “Do we learn that this year?”

“It’s mine,” Severus replied, a note of pride in his voice. “I made it.”

“What?” Yaxley demanded. “Bullshit. Most people can’t do that in their whole lives. No offence, Severus, but you’re not exactly the strongest guy around.”

“Let’s see,” Mulciber cut in. Everyone defaulted to him. He cleared his throat, gestured for them to talk, and stepped outside. The compartment broke into loud chatter, only cut off when Mulciber returned, with Regulus Black, Angus Goyle and another younger boy in tow.

“It works,” Mulciber declared. “This is Thorfinn Rowle, Regulus has recommended him.”   
There was a chorus of ‘hello’s and ‘welcome’s directed at the newest member, a third year. Severus again scooted over to make room. The train was yet to leave; out the window he could see children giving tearful goodbyes to their parents, with hugs and kisses and promises of letter-writing. He had been driven by Mr. and Mrs. Evans, which he was thankful for. They still insisted that ‘the magical people’ should look out for each other, and were delighted and amazed that Severus lived into such proximity to them. Petunia had not come this year; she was out with Vernon, Lily had said, scrunching her nose. They had spoken of little else on the long trip, apart from a barbed question of where he might be sitting on the train.  _ “With Mulciber?”  _ she’d asked, voice as sweet as honey, but her eyes flashed with anger. He had given her a mumbled yes and she’d huffily replied,  _ “Sit with Mary, and Marlene, and the rest of us. Mulciber is a prat.”  _ She didn’t get it. She fit in anyplace she tried, but Severus stuck out like a sore thumb even in places he was meant to be. It wasn’t a matter of just sitting with other people.

 

“Anyway,” Mulciber raised a hand. “Macnair and Pyrites got out of this muggle-infested hellhole last year, and joined up. They sent me a letter. Who wants to hear?” There was unanimous begging for the contents of the letter to be revealed, and Mulciber began.  _ “Dear Matthew, I have some pretty exciting news to share. After school finished, me and Arnold decided we’d join up. We didn’t want to waste time going to Uni or anything, because who’ll need it? The time is now. We shagged our way through the witches in Birmingham, because we heard he was out that way. There’s been a spate of killings in Shrewsbury, so we just followed the news, I guess. Went into this real dinghy pub, got a bit pissed and started talking about mudbloods and shit, and the pissy bartender chucked us out. But then this guy, who’d been sitting inside in this big cloak and shit, he came out to us. Asked if we meant it. Asked if we could meet him tomorrow. And now we’re gonna be the bigtime. I’ve put a picture in the envelope. Crabbe’s here, and Rookwood. Heaps of older boys too. Do you remember those guys who used to own the school when you were like, a first year? Malfoy and Lestrange and Parkinson and Avery, they’re all going up the ranks. He likes them. Hurry up and graduate, man. We miss you.” _

 

“I could’ve told you that much,” Black piped up crossly. “My cousins are married to Mr. Lestrange and Mr. Malfoy. Bellatrix is one herself.” Malfoy. Severus remembered the older boy from his first year, a tall, long-haired blond with sharp eyes and a stunning lineage. When Severus had entered the common room, alongside the other first years, he’d been lazing on the couch, like some kind of king, crowned in a silver halo. As each new Slytherin stepped forward, he’d asked them for their name, and their blood-status. Child after child said,  _ “Pureblood,”  _ and by the time Severus was asked forward, he’d said the same. Malfoy had known he was lying, but hadn’t said anything, thank goodness. Only later had he asked Severus to come and sit with him, and had blatantly said that there were no Pureblood families by the name of Snape.

 

 _“Prince,_ ” _Severus  said,_ _“My mother was a Prince. I don’t want to be like my dad. He hurts her and he hurts me.”_

_ “I know the Princes,” Malfoy replied, eyes murky. “And their daughter Eileen, who ran away, pregnant with muggle spawn. That would be you.” _

_ “She wishes she didn’t now,” Severus said. “She’s sorry. I’m sorry too. For being half muggle.” _

 

They had struck a deal. If Severus could be clever enough, could prove he was meant to be pureblood, then Malfoy would never utter a word about his father. Their cover story would be that the Snapes were a dwindling family from up north, and that Severus was the last heir. He was never to mention that his mother was a Prince, for risk of someone putting two and two together. As such, Severus had been tutored by him, not only in school subjects but in the ways of the wizarding world. And he owed the man. He always would. Lucius Malfoy was the closest to a father or an elder brother that he would ever get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this or left kudos! So, next chapter we will (finally) be getting girls' points of view. Also, what are your thoughts on the Death-Eater wannabes? Do you have any suggestions?


	3. some girls hate their bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dale's a chav, Slytherins suck, Mary takes a bath and this kid called Renner has a mouth.

September 1st, 1975

Lily smiled as she watched another first year sit on the high stool in front of the Great Hall. The hat drooped over his ears, nearly obscuring his eyes. She felt slightly sorry for him. She still vividly remembered walking up to the seat, everyone watching her, and how small she had felt. She was a muggleborn, and it was her very first day at Hogwarts, but even then she could tell how important your house was, compounded by the gasps after Sirius Black’s sorting. The tiny boy on the stool became a Hufflepuff, and Lily joined in the clapping, as she did for every new student, even the Slytherins, which was what the next little girl became. Marlene made a face at her.

 

“Why cheer?” Marlene asked. “She’s probably some pureblood brat.”

“She’s eleven, Marl,” Lily said softly, taking extra care to give the tiny blonde an encouraging smile. “They don’t sort people based on bloodstatus.”

“They do if it’s Slytherin,” Marlene snorted.

“Need I remind you, she’s  _ eleven, _ ” Lily replied. “Nobody’s whole life is decided at eleven, Marl.”

“She’s right, but,” Mary piped up, chewing her lip. The nervy blonde sat behind Lily. “There isn’t a single good person in Slytherin.”

“That’s a gross generalisation,” Lily said. “Stereotyping makes us no better than them. Sev’s in Slytherin.”

“ _ Snape  _ is your shining example?” Marlene asked, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t believe you’d think so highly of him if you hadn’t know him since day dot.”

“I like to think I can see the good in anyone.”   
  
“Tell me what’s good about Wilkes, then. He’s a prefect and he’s horrible. He’s one of  _ them _ ,” Mary said, eyes wide. “Bet he thinks all us muggleborns are scum.”

“He’s a product of his environment, okay? People in Slytherin get caught up in bad stuff, but that doesn’t make  _ them  _ inherently bad. They just need second chances,” Lily said.

_ “Racists  _ don’t need second chances, Lil. Some people don’t deserve them,” Marlene argued. “They’re just shitty.”

“If I never gave you a second chance, Marlene, we’d hardly be friends, so I don’t think you’re one to talk,” Lily pointed out, folding her arms across her chest, eyes gleaming. If Hogwarts had had a debate team, she would’ve been the first to join. Marlene only answered by laying her head on the table and sighing dramatically.

 

“I’m starving,” she groaned. “Where’s the food?”   
“We’re only up to Lockhart,” Lily retorted. “Halfway through the alphabet.”

“Gilderoy.” Marlene rolled her eyes. “Poor kid. Couldn’t they have called him ‘Roy’ and been done with it?”

“I like the name,” Mary chipped in, blushing. “It’s old fashioned.”

“Course  _ you  _ do, Mary-the-virgin. I don’t. If I have kids, I’m calling them something cool. Like Lennon, or Butterfly.”

“Butterfly?” Lily nearly choked. “Marl, with all due respect, you cannot call your child ‘Butterfly’. I’d prefer Gilderoy.”

 

“You’re having a baby?!” James Potter leaned over the table, slamming his elbows into the wood, eyes nearly popping out through his glasses. His hair was a mess, his tie loose, his collar up. Lily narrowed her eyes at him.

“ _ Potter.  _ Haven’t you got candy to be stealing?” she asked. Marlene leaned over too, resting her hand on her elbow and smirking.

“Hey, weren’t you just telling me about the  _ glory  _ of second chances, Lillabeth?”

“That’s not my name, Marlene,” Lily sighed, and shook her head at Potter. “Why on earth would I be having a baby? I’m fifteen.  _ Some  _ of us like to play by the rules.”

“Why are you talking about baby names, then?” James asked. “That just seems pointless. No offence.”

She poked out her tongue, shooting him a sarcastic smile. “Plenty taken, thanks, Potter.”

“We’re talking about some of the bogus names people give their kids,” Marlene cut in. “Like fucking  _ Gilderoy.” _

“I thought  _ I  _ had a shitty name,” Sirius laughed. “Gilderoy.  _ Fuck.  _ Sounds like something from St. Mungo’s.”

“Probably a vaginal disease,” Peter added, cheeks red. The conversation paused for a moment, everyone’s eyes falling on him.

“Uh, what the fuck, Peter?” Marlene asked.

“Oi! Don’t talk to my mate like that,” Sirius said, before turning to the boy. “What the fuck, Peter?”

 

“I like my name,” Remus shrugged. “It’s not plain, like James or Peter - no offence, your names are nice - and it’s not downright strange, like Ludovic.”

“I think my dad had to give me a normal name,” James said. “He’s called Fleamont.”

“Have none of you wizarding lot considered using more muggle names?” Lily frowned. “Ludovic. Gilderoy. Fleamont. They’re okay, but what’s wrong with Nick or Harry or Scott or Christopher?”

“Be fair, Lily,” Marlene said. “Can you imagine it? ‘Wassup, I’m Scott, I do magic. Wanna see my wand, baby?’ No wizard can be called Scott. He’d be a burnout  _ at best. _ ”

“She has a point,” James agreed. “We can’t go calling ourselves Josh or Shane.”

“Hey! I have a cousin called Shane.” Dale was the other boy in the dorm that James, Sirius, Remus and Peter shared. You would be forgiven for thinking that he was in his mid-twenties, given the fact that he had refused to shave his facial hair since it came in, preferring detentions, and now had a small amount of fuzz covering his face. His moustache was significantly darker than the rest of his blond hair, and his father was an American, giving him odd turns of phrase. It was unanimously agreed that, if anyone was to reveal the wizarding world to muggles, it would be him. It made him a target of the Slytherins and a troublemaker to the Ravenclaws, but he didn’t care. Not about anything, it seemed, except impressing girls and being ‘a man’. He was too bonkers even for the other boys, who Lily personally thought went too far most of the time. Dale wasn’t a prankster - he was his own breed of  _ weird,  _ and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

 

“Your name is  _ Dale, _ ” Marlene replied. “You’re a weirdo.”   
“Anomaly,” Remus corrected mildly.

“Yeah, that.”

Dale shrugged, and slid between James and Sirius. God only knew where he had came from, and why he hadn’t been there for most of the Sorting Ceremony. “Well, my parents just like, needed a way to tell their girl kids from their boy kids, so I guess they were like, ‘let’s give our girl kids prissy names, like Elizabeth and Catherine, and give our boy kids names to make ‘em the smoothest dude-ests like Keith and Dale’. Seems smart to me.”   
“Isn’t Betty’s name actually Betty? Not Elizabeth?” Lily asked, eyebrows darting upwards. 

“Well - like, yeah, but they meant to call her Elizabeth. They just said Betty, and like, thought the doctor people would know what they meant. Not their fault they were turkeys. What were they meant to say?”

“I don’t know. How about, ‘our daughter’s name is Elizabeth’?” Lily fired back. 

“Huh?”   
“Don’t be too hard on him, Lily,” Remus said. “Daughter’s an awfully big word for him.” The two laughed, whilst Dale shook his head and scrunched up his nose. The hall gradually fell silent, as the last of the sortings had occured. Lily turned her attention to the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, who approached the lectern. He opened with words of welcome, including ‘greetings’, and ‘salutations’. He then moved on to wishing them a good holiday. It was only in the third part of his speech that Lily’s ears  _ really  _ pricked up.

“...As you may know, from the assortment of stories in the newspapers, to no doubt your own, very interesting, and highly accurate gossip,” he said, “there has been anti-muggle sentiment rising in the greater wizarding community. This extends to those of muggle heritage. I would like to remind you,” he continued, “that there is no place for hatred here at Hogwarts. Every student that passes through these halls is one and the same in terms of their amounts of magic. They only differ in their talents, of which we all possess. Bigotry will not be tolerated for as long as I am the Headmaster of this fine school. I would advise that certain groups of students reflect very carefully on their actions, before their choices are no longer theirs to make. Thank you.”

 

The applause was slow, and scattered. Lily saw stupid Yaxley’s face wrinkle and so she stood, clapping as loud as she could, whooping. Yaxley’s eyes narrowed, even more, and he mouthed something, so she climbed onto her seat, raising her arms above her head and clapping. Her stomach twisted in knots as she did so, but then Marlene copied her. “Wooo, peace!” Marlene yelled. Her voice echoed throughout the hall. And then James climbed onto his seat, clapping. 

“Go, Dumbledore!” he yelled. He caught her eye, for a second, and smiled. Part of her wanted to thank him -  _ later,  _ she told herself. Sirius quickly joined, hooting loudly, and Dale followed, dragging Peter upwards. Remus was very interested in the table. A couple of sixth year Gryffindors joined in. Nobody in the rest of the room made a sound, until Alice grabbed Marlene by the edge of her robe.  _ “Get down!”  _ she hissed, badge gleaming. Marlene stumbled forwards, hitting her knees on the table, and her elbow hit Lily in the ribs. James just seemed to fall out of sympathy, the idiot, and only Sirius and Dale still stood. Lily had hit her nose against the edge and now rubbed it furiously.

 

Sirius’ eyes were shut, and he was making a fool of himself, dancing around. For his finale, he rolled up his sleeves, made peace signs with each of his hands, tilted his head back, and screamed, “FUCK SLYTHERIN!” In that moment, Lily resolved to break his nose when they were back in the common room.

“We’re meant to be anti-hate, Sirius!” Lily yelled. Finally, Remus appeared to realise what was happening and pulled his friend down. The hall had broken into mayhem, filled with yells and jeers. On the opposite side of the Great Hall, Goyle raised his middle finger.

“Fuck yourself, mudblood fucker!” he boomed. Lily rose to her feet again at once, whipping out her wand. Her blood was scorching, and she gripped her wand so tightly it left indents in her palm. She stormed across the hall, Marlene hot on her heels, even though she could hear Alice’s shrill voice screaming that she didn’t want to have to take points off her own house, and Lily was a  _ prefect. _ The badge hardly mattered now, and the redhead broke into a run, holding her wand out in front of her.

 

“How  _ dare  _ you?” she screeched, pushing past the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. Mulciber and Jugson had risen behind him. She saw Severus, staring, and angry tears welled in her eyes like poison. “Tell them, Sev!” she screamed. He looked away, as if ashamed for her to say his name. Her hand wavered, nearly changing its target to him.  _ He’s scared, that’s all,  _ she thought quickly, and focused back on Goyle. She began to move her wand, opening her mouth to speak -

“ _ Engorgio Skullus!”  _ James pushed past her and Goyle’s head began to swell. His chin grew wider and wider until it was the size of his shoulders. Marlene put a hand on Lily’s shoulder.

“You’re a prefect, you can’t go around hexing people,” she said. “Go back to the table before they take that pretty badge off you.”

“Potter!” Lily spat, rounding on the boy. “What on earth? I was about to-”

“All Gryffindors, back to your seats,  _ now,  _ or each of you will put your house into negative points,” Professor McGonagall decreed, standing on the lectern with a nasty glint in her eye, and twitching lips. Lily and Marlene reluctantly returned, but James stood still. Professor McGonagall looked down her nose. “Mr. Potter, that means you too.”

 

Marlene rolled her eyes. “Fuckin’ hero, that boy thinks he is.”   
“Tell me about it,” Lily huffed, pushing strands of hair out of her eyes as they walked back, ignoring Alice’s filthy looks in their direction. The girls linked arms and sat back by Mary, who was gnawing on a nail anxiously. Professor McGonagall was beginning to address the hall, after a small verbal skirmish with James, who had gotten Gryffindor to negative twenty points and earned himself a detention. Lily glowered. He was a fool and an annoyance, at best. She’d never seen the funny side of his actions in the way everyone else seemed to. 

 

Professor McGonagall continued speaking at length about Quidditch, to which Marlene listened eagerly and Lily drifted off. She fiddled with a silver bracelet that clamped to her wrist, growing too tight. She and her sister Petunia had gotten matching ones at a fair in her tenth summer, with a small pendant dangling off it, in the shape of a heart made from their birthstones. Lily’s heart was made of garnet, and it fluttered against the blue veins of her wrist as she breathed.

 

Petunia had refused to see her off, shaking her head with a pinched face, and hefted another box. She had decided that the study was pointless and would be put to better use as a bedroom, so the sisters didn’t need to share. Lily had argued and pleaded and dug her heels in, but Petunia won, citing her age as making it a necessity. They had shared a bedroom from the time Lily was a baby, and until Petunia was eleven, they had crept into the other’s bed each night, whispering secrets and playing games. The move had come not two weeks after Petunia yelled at her for calling her ‘Tuney’, and stomped off in a rage.

 

Even the thought of writing a letter to the older girl filled her with uneasiness. What could she say? What could she do to make things better? Marlene had always fought like a mad cat with her brothers and sisters and so it made no matter to her, and Mary only had two younger brothers whom she called little angels, though after Marlene once helped babysit, she had reckoned them ‘little beasties’. And she was hardly likely to find a book on it - books on sisterly rivalry, maybe, but not on trying to convince your sister that,  _ really,  _ magic isn’t that big a deal, can’t we still be friends, please?

 

It hardly made sense. Petunia was the oldest, she’d done well in all her exams, she was beautiful, and had found a nice boyfriend, though Lily had not yet met him. Her mother had detailed him; Vernon, his name was, and he sported a handsome mustache and was studying business at university. Lily had asked if she might meet him, but Petunia had refused.  _ “How can I introduce you to him? You’re a little freak who turns cups into toads and whatnot. What would he think of me?”  _ Lily’s eyes burned at the memory, and she rested her head on her arm upon the table.

 

“Lily,” Mary said softly, “are you okay? I’m sorry about what Yaxley said. It makes me sad too.”

“Don’t be sorry, Mary,” Lily said. “It’s hardly your fault.” Professor Slughorn now came to the lectern, and began talking about the events for the Slug Club. Lily attempted to take mental notes -  _ dinner, lunch, dinner, dinner.  _

“Now finally,” Professor Slughorn beamed. “Headmaster, may we eat?”

The candlelight bloomed brighter and Lily sat up quickly, as to avoid getting hit in the face with shepherd’s pie or potatoes. The tables filled quickly, with plates popping up from one end to the other. She ate half-heartedly while Marlene demolished all her food and then took Lily’s leftovers, and Mary was more interested in twiddling her fork than eating. James, on account of being in trouble, had been taken out of the Great Hall, and Sirius was apparently on a sympathy food strike, but Remus had an almost wolfish appetite and Peter picked at bits and pieces. Not even dessert tempted Lily. Her mind was racing, flipping from Petunia to Severus and back again. It gave her quite the headache.

 

September 2nd, 1975

Mary pulled on her socks and shuffled back so she could stretch her legs out. Her stomach ached as though it might burst. She chewed the inside of her cheek nervously, watching her friends for cues. Marlene had opened a packet of chips and was devouring them, Lily was frowning at some coursework, and Alisha Chaise was doodling in a notebook. They had been fancied quite uncommon upon realising there were three muggleborns in one dormitory. Mary tucked in the blanket around her sides, and waited for somebody to speak to her. She hadn’t any idea on what else to do.

 

“Can you believe the Charms homework we’ve got?” Lily finally piped up, eyebrows creasing. “God, I knew OWL year was hard, but not  _ this  _ hard.”

“We ‘ad homerk?” Marlene asked, bits of food flying out of her mouth and onto her bed. Mary lowered her eyes, staring at the crimson covers.  _ Don’t think about food,  _ she told herself.  _ Just don’t think about it. Don’t think about the taste, or the smell, or the feeling in your mouth, or in your stomach.  _ She pressed her palms hard into the bed, taking a deep breath.

“Yes, we’re meant to write five inches on hair-thickening charms,” Lily nodded, consulting her notes. Alisha looked up, nibbling on the end of her quill.

“What is there to write about?” she asked. “I mean, it thickens hair.”   
“I’m with you,” Marlene grinned, having swallowed her food. She jumped off her own bed and launched onto Alisha’s. The springs squealed. “It’s just a charm.” Her skirt hitched as she laid down on the bed, revealing a swathe of tanned, muscled thigh. Mary swallowed, and strained her eyes looking back at the blanket, trying to make out each individual stitch as a distraction.

 

Lily rolled her eyes. “The history, what hair it thickens, can it be used on non-human creatures, on wigs, how do the principles of charms apply, et cetera, et cetera. It’s due last period tomorrow, so I’d get started if I were you,” she said, quirking her red eyebrows, before scribbling something down. Mary’s stomach churned. She wasn’t  _ terrible  _ at Charms, but the theory eluded her. They also had Runes homework, which she was hopeless at. Her bookbag seemed to taunt her from its place hanging off her bedpost, and she jiggled her leg nervously. She wanted desperately to go to bed, but it was hardly seven, and the four girls were only up here because someone was setting off fireworks in the common room. Her stomach felt permanently lurched, as though someone had frozen her body in the moment her stomach dropped on a rollercoaster. 

 

The books continued to glare, and she squirmed. The work had to be done, yes, but she was determined to put it off for as long as possible. She’d felt like such an idiot already today. In Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall had asked her to recall the elements, something they learned in  _ first year,  _ and Mary had said there, staring at her feet, until finally she shook her head, and Professor McGonagall had taken a point for lack of revision. Marlene had snarkily told Mary that Professor McGonagall was just a bitch and that nobody revised over the holidays, until some Ravenclaw earned twenty points in two exchanges. A dark cloud had circled around her for the rest of the day, only worsening at dinner.

 

It wasn’t that she didn’t like food. She did. A lot. She spent her summers baking, she could make a recipe with her eyes closed, and why this didn’t transfer to Potions, she knew least of anyone. Maybe it was that she liked it too much. The could still taste her last meal when she ate her next, and the flavours blended together in some oversaturated rainbow. Nausea burned in the back of her throat, head pounding, and she slid off the bed, landing on the floor with a  _ thump.  _ Alisha gasped, and Lily looked up.

“Mary? Are you okay?” she asked, voice terse. Mary rubbed her head and stood, legs wobbly and made of cotton wool. She waved a hand faintly, and stumbled into the bathroom, dropping to her knees again. The tiles were cold beneath her bare legs. She managed to nudge the door shut with her foot, and she gripped the sides of the toilet as vomit spewed out. Tears reddened her eyes and stained her cheeks, and her forehead smacked the toilet seat as she bent over. 

 

Once her stomach had been emptied, she slumped, sweat beading her forehead despite the chilly Autumn weather. Slowly, she pulled off her jumper, now stained, and threw it on the floor. One hand snaked up the door and locked it, clicking the handle. With her shaking fingers, she unbuttoned her blouse, and let it fall to the floor. Leaning on the wall, she stood, and stumbled to the combination bath/shower, almost slipping on the baby powder covered mat.

 

With difficulty, she got her hands on the faucet and began to fill up the bath. She was meant to be showering tonight, after Amy, and she just hoped the others forgot. Mary fiddled with the zipper on her skirt, watching the bulge of white flesh poke out each time she slid it all the way down. Marlene had taken her tanning but she only singed and sizzled. She’d declined after the first two times, as she could hardly lay on her bed for pain. The stomach chub wouldn’t disappear either, no matter how many times she ran down to the store and grew out of breath, leaning against the brick wall and panting like a wild dog. She tried crunches, too, and all sorts of stretches, but her joints only shrieked and squeaked in pain. The bath bubbled like a brook as it filled, and finally she got the skirt off, kicking it from around her ankles. 

 

She undressed completely, then tenderly put one foot in the bathtub. The water sloshed just below her knee, and so she put her other foot in. The girls had fought over the shower caddy, and at least ten types of travel shampoo hung in the metal cage, paired with copious amounts of conditioner, or hair dye in Marlene’s case. Her own parents would kill her if she ever touched her hair with a chemical using a ten meter pole. She sunk into the warm water, letting it wash over her. The muscles in her back eased. She was short enough that her toes didn’t quite touch the end of the tub when she stretched out, and it made it all the more enjoyable. Two drops of soap drizzled into the bath, tingeing the water a deep lavender. Her neck flopped back, head grazing against the tiles. Her eyes fluttered, and her fingers traced her skin, pinching the rolls of fat that gathered at her waist and the love handles spilling over her hips. 

 

Mary rubbed the soap against the skin of her thighs, frowning slightly. They jiggled together, touching together where they chafed in the summer. Sometimes, when she saw her mother’s photographs and the recollections of her pretty friends, Mary thought she might’ve been better suited to ten or twenty years ago rather than now. Marlene, by contrast, was athletic, with perfect feathered hair that would be golden brown if she didn’t dye it. Her skin was just dark enough to draw eyes over her body, to look as though she spent her days on Spanish beaches rather than in a dreary Scottish castle. Her manner helped to, with a snarky flirtatiousness that Mary couldn’t copy no matter how hard she tried. Mary drew boys like flies to water (that is to say, not at all), whilst Marlene was a rotting carcass on display.

 

Lily, too, was prettier than Mary, albeit in a different way. She was short, though taller than Mary, with skinny limbs and long red hair that should’ve made her an outcast. Yet somehow, she wore it well, like a witch from a fairy story, one of the brave lasses who went to their deaths with heads held high. Mary shuddered, recalling a rather gruesome essay they’d been forced to write on such trials. It was as if Lily saw how easily she could be ugly, and used it to make herself beautiful, taking each gangly limb and freckle and stringy hair and turning it into art. Mary wasn’t that creative.

 

Alisha was blonde, with full lips and small eyes and the perfect blowout who came armed not with magical make-up, but with muggle, that she stocked up on holidays, and she’d made a favourite habit of hers getting pureblood boys to compliment her before telling them how muggle she was, for telling them the lashes they admired were courtesy of someone without a drop of magical blood and she’d laugh at their outrage. She’d be stunning no matter what, but she wielded it like a weapon, making sure nobody forgot her roots, least of all her. She didn’t pretend, like Mary had, on occasion, she’d never keep her mouth shut when she could be making a clever retort. She refused to wear her robes even in the halls, naming them unnatural, and bought bags of muggle clothing to avoid being stuck looking like a wizard. 

 

Amy was pureblooded, and had almost been a hatstall between Slytherin and Gryffindor. She was ridiculously tall with a thin body, and had dull brown hair. When Mary particularly needed cheering up, she would try to console herself by reasoning she must be more pretty than Amy. But Amy was smart, and most looked past her odd shape to enlist her as a friend. She knew every way round the rules and knew how to wriggle people out of their money, too.

 

Mary was just Mary, who looked the same as she did at eleven, and she hadn’t gotten smarter, either. The flirting never came off right, because she could never tell who she even thought attractive, let alone wanted to date. Marlene often said that drug dealers would run away from Mary, if only because she looked like someone who would run crying to the nearest teacher or Auror. Last year, their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had kindly asked if she was lost, and told her the first-years were in Herbology, which had prompted her to turn bright red and she could hardly hold back blubbery tears.

 

“Mary!” Lily called, banging on the door. “Are you right? Is that you in the bath?” Mary immediately sunk lower, until the soapy water reached her chin. She hadn’t thought to tie her hair up, and she could only cringe at the thought of the night-long dripping off her thick curls. Lily’s voice dropped slightly. “Mary.” The handle jiggled insistently. Mary sunk deeper, until her nostrils were touching the water. “Mary, are you right, or not?”

“Lily,” she heard Marlene call. “Leave her be, Merlin’s pants.” Lily knocked once more before relenting, and Mary let go of a breath she hadn’t meant to hold.

 

September 3rd 1975

Dorcas scrawled her signature on the bottom of the parchment. It had taken her seventeen inches to get to this point, and that was after condensing and removing several events. It was a letter home, explaining the previous three days, to her younger sister. Marnie insisted she was told ‘everything’ - the girl had been surprisingly okay with being a squib, so long as Dorcas relayed every piece of information that she could. It was strange, but Dorcas did as she was told. She owed her that much. Some part of her wondered if it was better that Marnie was a squib. Some of the people at Hogwarts these days - to put it nicely - were cunts.

 

She folded the parchment up, creasing it as neatly as possible, and tucked it in her pocket. Dorcas set off to the Owlery. Most classes had finished up for the day, and resultantly the halls were rather crowded. Dorcas eyed Cynthia, her dormmate, who seemed as if she would not be meeting her in the common room to review their Charms notes, as her tongue was currently halfway down Dirk Cresswell’s throat. She’d never really gotten the appeal of romance, or just  _ boys  _ in general. When asked, she usually blamed it on the Lovegood freakbat from two years above, who had creeped her out on her very first day of school by asking excitedly if she knew that flobberworms could live in the cervix. And then, when she’d asked what a cervix was, he had basically given her ‘The Talk’.

 

Maybe she was just weird. Different. She felt it, at least. Like the world was layered, and she was walking on one alone.Like she wasn’t on the same metaphysical plane as everyone else, and she was walking in the wrong direction, her head where others’ feet were. She panted as she descended down the stairs, knees aching, and some older Slytherin girl cut her off, shoving her out of the way. “You and I wouldn’t fit,” she said, ushering three of her stick thin friends onto the stairs, smirking as they rotated away. Dorcas leaned on the railing, watching as they disappeared from view, and waited ten minutes for the next set of stairs to come around so she could get off the fourth floor.

 

She strode through the entrance hall and out onto the grounds, where it was colder than she’d expected. Autumn had only just begun, and while the evergreens that lined the edge of the forest stood tall as ever, others’ leaves were already turning yellow at their outstretched tips. She wrapped her arms around her middle as best she could and headed in the direction of the Owlery tower.There was a chilly wind blowing off the lake and it caught her scarf in the long gusts. She begun to wish she had worn stockings or even just something other than the white ankle socks she’d thought would do. She kept close to the outside of the castle, keeping her eyes firmly on her boots.

 

Something hit her stomach, and then her shoulder, and she caught a glimpse of blonde and books falling into the mud leftover from the morning’s shower. Dorcas froze, and blinked at the girl now on the ground, splattered in brown muck.

 

“Mary,” she said, a little taken aback, pushing a strand of hair behind her ears. “Are you alright?” The Gryffindor had appeared out of nowhere, still in her school robes, face flushed red. Her rosebud mouth was opened slightly, sharp exhales escaping between her parted pair of pink lips. Dorcas shifted awkwardly, and held out her hand. The blonde took it, stumbling to her feet, cheeks crimson. It was as though someone had dribbled red watercolour over the other girl’s face.

 

“I’m sorry,” Mary squeaked, not looking Dorcas in the eyes. She pulled at her collar and shifted her feet. A strange shiver ran through Dorcas, and she wanted to say  _ something -  _ but what, exactly, she wasn’t sure. Mary started again, but immediately slipped, and Dorcas’ hands leapt out to catch her. Her thick fingers landed on Mary’s waist, as if the Gryffindor was a small doll in a child’s chubby hands. 

“Steady on,” Dorcas said softly, grasp lingering. It was only when Mary completely regained her balance that Dorcas registered how weird it was for the pair of them to be standing there, her touching Mary so intimately. She took her hands away as if burned, and Mary’s gaze returned to the ground.

“Sorry, Dorcas. Thank you,” Mary mumbled, brushing some of the mud off her skirt and starting on her way. Overhead, the sky was a deep grey, threatening rain, the cracks between each cloud glowing like streaks of painted lightning. Dorcas opened her mouth, about to offer up a cleaning charm, but Mary was already disappearing from sight.

 

So she continued to the Owlery, hurrying a little faster now under the threat of rain. A few first years had decided to have a mud-fight, apparently, little lions and snakes. She rolled her eyes. It was if they were out to get each other, be rivals from the beginning, and Godric only knew why the older students encouraged it. “Hey!” she shouted at them. “Good luck cleaning your robes! Do any of you know how to do your own washing?” They didn’t really need to, considering the presence of house elves, but she hoped it would be enough to stop them. One Slytherin boy backed off, but the others sent her dirty looks. 

 

“Don’t tell us what to do, fatty!” one shouted. Dorcas flushed, and abruptly changed her course, turning on her heel. She stormed towards the group of eleven year olds, and most scattered, running for the forest or just away. Dorcas didn’t care. She was only after one of them, the arrogant Gryffindor berk. He folded his arms across his chest, sticking out his chin.

“Mind your manners,” she snapped, grabbing hold of the boy’s tie. He pulled back, raising his eyebrows, eyes narrowed.

“You can’t hurt me,” he said. “I’m a muggle-born. If you do, I’ll tell them you did it because I’m muggle-born.”   
“Don’t be a dick,” she hissed. “Haven’t you ever heard, ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’?”

“I’ll hex you,” he threatened, in his high-pitched voice. Dorcas softened slightly. He was a little kid. She let go of his tie, but still glared at him. He stepped back, dusting himself off, and drew his wand, to her surprise.

“You’ve been here three days,” she said. “What hexes do you know?” She was curious to see how much he’d lie, more than anything. They hadn’t learned anything aside from theory for at least a month into first year, and Dorcas very much doubted things had changed. The boy rolled up his sleeves, brandishing his wand, which already looked dirty.  _ Boys,  _ honestly. 

 

“Curse this witch, curse this bitch, turn her hair brown and make her frown,” he said, jabbing his wand towards her. He looked awfully serious and grim-faced. It was all Dorcas could do not to laugh.

“Look,” she said. “I have brown hair already, so that bit was useless. Secondly, I have frown lines already from stress.” She pointed to the creases of her face. “Thirdly, you don’t seem to have heard anybody cast a real spell. They’re not done in little rhymes.” He glared at her. “Look. What’s your name?”

“Renner.”

“Renner….?”

“Renner Filch.”

“Fuck  _ off,”  _ Dorcas exclaimed, before clapping her hands over her mouth. “Sorry.  _ Filch? _ ” The younger boy bristled.

“You got a problem with my name? ‘Cos my parents got no magic?” he demanded, cockney accent thick. She felt like she might be sick, and like she might laugh, all at once.  _ Filch.  _ It couldn’t be a common surname, so how on earth did the caretaker end up with a muggle-born - relation? Her mind ticked over.  _ Squib.  _ Maybe Flich’s brother was a squib, or uncle, or even further back. Most muggle-borns had a squib somewhere. Nonetheless, it was still disconcerting to know the little brat was a  _ Filch _ . Funny, too. She was bursting to tell someone. Marnie, maybe. She’d told Marnie all about Filch and his general dickassery. Part of her wished she had someone  _ here,  _ though, to share it with.  _ Jack of all trades, master of none.  _ Friendly with everyone, but no real friends. 

 

“Renner Filch,” she repeated, trying not to laugh. “Don’t be a dick. I feel like you’ll have a warrant out anyway.” The boy looked more bewildered, and she turned and stormed away towards the Owlery, shoulders quivering as she laughed.


	4. stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the boys sit under an old tree, regulus goes to potions class, and lily witnesses a fight

**September 19th 1975**

Over the mountains to the west, the sun was setting. Streaks of smudged orange stretched out like fingers, reaching to him. It was a Friday afternoon, and the four of them sat under a large beech tree. Branches twisted upwards, supporting a canopy of dark leaves, green and orange together, crunching at the tips. Remus leaned against the thick trunk, a book opened on his lap. James and Sirius were pooling together some of their stranger sweets, like fizzing whizbees, and explosive fairy dust. Peter sat watching them, his textbook by his side.

  
“Are you going to open it?” Remus asked, quirking a brow. Peter glanced at the battered book;  _ A History of Magic,  _ by Bathilda Bagshot. He skimmed one finger gently over the lumpy cover, pushing a curl out of his eye.

“Don’t know,” he said honestly. “I don’t really want to take it next year, so I figure, why bother studying at all for it? I guess.” Remus shrugged back.

“Whatever then. Just make sure you pass enough else,” he said, and returned to his reading. Peter wriggled closer to James and Sirius, the stars of the show. James was eagerly peeling the wrapping off a fizzing whizbee packet, tearing at it until they all came loose. The sweets scattered onto the floor, and Sirius exclaimed.

“Fuck,” James said emphatically. “They’re all dirty.”

“Oh?” Sirius smirked. “I can add some dog shit to it, if you like. We could give it to Snivellus, kill two birds with one stone. Evans will think you’re being nice, and we get to make Snivvy eat shit.”

“You think you’ll be a dog?” Peter asked excitedly, eyes wide. James rolled onto his back and lifted a fizzing whizbee into the air, shaking the dirt loose. 

 

“Reckon,” Sirius said. “Last time I got halfway there, and I had ears ‘n’ a tail ‘n’ shit. If the potion hadn’t been fucked up, I would’ve been.”

“I’m sorry,” said Peter. It had been partially his fault. He’d messed up and held his leaf in for twenty-nine days, not a month, and when the lightning storm came, in his excitement he had knocked he and Sirius’ cups over. James had then refused to take the opportunity to transform, and now they were all stuck waiting. 

“Hey, mate, it’s all good,” James interjected, clapping him on the back. “The instructions are dodgy. We’ll try again in a bit.”   
“Or you could not,” Remus said pointedly. “You’re fifteen, I’m not having you all risk your lives -”

“Mate,” James said, sitting upright and leaning towards Remus. “So are you, and you’ve been going through it every month. It’s the least we can do. No backing out now, we’ve had a trial and we’re doing it for real this time.”

  
“Peter, pass,” Sirius said, gesturing to his wand, and Peter gave it to him.  _ “Incendio minima,”  _ Sirius whispered, and the tip produced a small flame that he used to light a cigarette. James grinned, stuffed the fizzing whizbee back in the packet, and fell onto his back again.

“Oi,” he said, reaching his hand in the air and making a grabbing gesture. Sirius sucked hard and then passed it to James, blowing out smoke. A dragon formed in the cloud and roared mightily, flapping its wings and flying into nonexistence. The boys laughed. Peter took the cigarette and sucked in hard, the sour taste of tobacco filling his mouth. He opened his mouth and exhaled hard, coughing on the white-grey tendrils squeezing his lungs. A little lamb appeared, bleating mockingly before running away. Peter continued to choke, James hitting him on the back and Sirius laughing.

 

“No shame in him being a girl,” James said, giving Sirius a  _ look  _ and getting to his feet, reaching his hand out to Peter, who frowned at it. “C’mon, Petes.” Peter gave in, grabbing his hand, snorting slightly as James pulled him up. James then took his other hand, and flashed a bright smile at Sirius. “Mate, I’m trying to woo my lady love! Give me some music, why don’t you?” Peter blushed, and Sirius sniggered, muttering an incantation. Upbeat, instantly recognisable notes piped out of his wand, and Peter cringed. 

“Give me the Cruciatus,” he begged.  _ ‘My my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender’.  _

 

James struck up a dance, grooving his arms back and forth, backstepping, alternating from holding each of Peter’s hands to putting one on his waist, at which Peter would flinch and Sirius would burst into more hysterical laughter. He kicked limbs out at random, and Peter’s face was bright red, hardly moving until the end, at which James spun him raising up his arm, eyes shining with tears of laughter.

 

“Moving on from Lily?” Sirius barked as Peter and James parted, the latter flashing him the finger. Peter snorted, running his teeth over his lips.

“Is this gonna be the year you get your gingernut?” he teased. James poked his tongue out and twirled, robes flicking up, and then leaned against the tree, running his fingers through his hair.

“Speaking of,” Remus said, glancing up from his book. “Am I still doing your Herbology homework?”   
“Fuck yeah,” the other three said together. James and Sirius paid upfront, and Peter stumbled through an excuse of how his mum would send him the money next week. Remus shrugged, as if it didn’t really matter, and started to copy notes out from  _ 1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi.  _ Peter squatted back on the grass, taking a sweet Sirius offered him. As he sucked on it, he cast his eyes around. They had a nice little corner of the grounds, mainly to themselves. The closest people were Catherine Roshfinger and her friend Lisbete Moult, both Gryffindors in their third year. Catherine was laughing hard at something, pale cheeks bright pink with effort. His thoughts wandered to her brother. 

 

“Have you guys heard when Dale’s gonna give me back my good tie?” Peter asked, tugging at his collar. Their dormmate had borrowed it two days ago after learning of Professor McGonagall’s upcoming uniform checks (which had been yesterday) and left Peter with only a ratty, stained spare. In hindsight, he should’ve given the shitty one to Dale, but he’d tried to do the nice thing for his mate.

 

“As if,” James snorted. “Sorry, mate, your luck’s up on that. Last night he was practising  _ incendio _ on it.”   
“That bodes well,” Remus said. “He’s still struggling with first-year spells?”

_ “No, _ ” Peter said faintly, massaging his temples with his short fingers. “Damn. Why would he do that? Who is he going to steal from next? How do I get a new tie?”

“Legend says if you snog the Headmaster, he’ll give you a whole new robe set,” Sirius said dryly. “That’s how my family’s kept so bloody polished over the years.” Remus laughed out loud.

“So do you and Regulus take turns on Professor Dumbledore?” he queried. 

“He gets Tuesdays and I get Thursdays,” Sirius retorted, not missing a beat.   
  


“Hey!” said Peter. “Back to the main topic - my tie. What do I do?”

“Mate, don’t worry,” James said, clapping his friend on the back. “I’ll write my mum a letter, she’ll get you one.”

“Don’t do that,” Peter said, round cheeks flushing. 

“It’s fine. She likes to hear from me often anyways,” he shrugged. “And it’s no trouble for her. Don’t worry, Pete. You’re my mate.” There was a moment of silence, and Sirius took it over.

“Awesome, you fags. Now, who’s up for going and finding Snivellus?”

 

**September 30th 1975**

As far as Regulus was concerned, he half-owned this place. It was his great-great grandfather who had once sat in the Headmaster’s chair, who had his portrait on the wall, it was his family who had graced these halls since the time of the first opening, who had made merry with Salazar himself. He carried himself with that knowledge engraved over his heart, worn like a badge of honour and a shield. His robes billowed behind him as he strode through the dungeons, heading to Potions class. 

 

He was a Black, albeit the youngest of his generation, but he carried that in his veins, just as his brother did. At times, Regulus couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that he was the younger, that Sirius was supposed to be the heir. At times it seemed they’d both be happier if Regulus were in his place. At others, late at night in his dormitory, he worried he wouldn’t live up to his parents’ wishes either. He continued down the hall, trying to quell his mind of all but Potions. 

  
“Black,” called Gibbon, appearing from the shadows at his side. Regulus did not turn his head, but nodded all the same, in acknowledgement. Ephraim Gibbon was his dormmate, and they often paired together. Gibbon was from a minor pureblood family, keeping their line pure but never acquiring the money or notoriety of the Blacks, and so he was happy to do anything for Regulus as it gave him approval and status. Regulus, meanwhile, enjoyed having a lackey, as anybody would - and he responded to humour better than Kreacher did, at any rate. 

 

“Gibbon,” Regulus said.

“How was Arithmancy?” Gibbon asked, attempting to match his long strides. “Everyone says it’s awfully difficult. Do you agree?”

“It’s all about the mind, Gibbon,” Regulus said. “It’s not hard if you work hard.”

“Right. Of course.” Regulus turned down the corridor that lead to the Potions classroom. “I had Divination.” Regulus smiled thinly.

“Oh?” He prompted vaguely.

“We’re interpreting dreams at the minute. Last night I saw myself standing on the top of the Astronomy Tower, scouting for owls. Apparently that means I’m anxious, and I worry about an uncertain future.”   
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Regulus said rather unsympathetically. “Have you any assignments coming up?”   
“No,” Gibbon said. “I mean, I don’t think so. Do we?”

“We have our essay on Elemental Transfiguration due on Monday,” he said. “The one we worked on with Yaxley.”   
“Oh.”

“Sit with me,” Regulus said, though it was more like a command. They entered the Potions classroom and found their way to the front bench. Professor Slughorn was yet to walk in, and it took a lot of effort for Regulus to refrain from making a joke about it. Professor Slughorn was a portly man, getting on slightly, and was always armed with odd phrases and laughter. He was also perpetually late to class, as he couldn’t help but stop and chat to each person that passed him by. He called it ‘networking’, in their Slug Club meetings, but Regulus would’ve said he was just a bored, chatty old man. 

 

“Regulus,” and Alfreck Rosier sat on his other side, inclining his blonde head. Regulus nodded back politely, for Alfreck was a cousin of Regulus’ cousins, as near every pureblood was. “Gibbon,” Alfreck added, not bothering with a given name for Regulus’ little pet. In a way, Regulus thought, he and Alfreck were almost mirrors, both with brothers a year older, both part of a great pureblood house, both having to put up with the disgrace of their blood-traitor cousin. Nearly anything that could be said of Alfreck could be said of Regulus. 

“Is your family well?” Regulus asked, for Alfreck had sat apart from the normal cluster at breakfast, choosing to sit with his elder brother. They could be loners, the Rosier boys, and would sometimes rather sit by themselves or with girls than with the boys of Slytherin. It had been quite the snub on the Express, and whilst his mother had advised making a barb or two and then glossing it over, it still troubled the young Slytherin. They had all agreed on the meeting during the summer, and surely they would’ve known how much comment their disappearance would make.

 

“I believe so,” Alfreck said, opening his textbook. “My brother was telling me about some runes they learn in fifth year, just this morning. Is Sirius well? I don’t see you together often.” They were trying to talk like their parents, stiff and formal. Mimicking their fathers.

“Yes, I believe so. He’s also in his O.W.L year.”

“Yes, I’ve heard. I don’t see much of him in the common room?”

“Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor.”

“That’s right,” Alfreck said. “My mistake. He must be brave, indeed, if he can cope living among the lions. My parents would’ve come to the school, if it had been my brother. We’d never let one of our own end up with that riff-raff.” Regulus paused, thinking for a moment of his next words.

“The Blacks envision a Hogwarts where, regardless of house, there will be none of that sort.” That seemed to get Alfreck’s attention. 

“Headmaster Black hardly succeeded with that,” he said sharply. “But it’s an admirable ambition. One I think many of us would agree with.”

“For certain, both our families agree,” Regulus said. “Our cousin Bellatrix should make us proud.”

“What of Andromeda?” Alfreck added, narrowing his eyes. “She must have had little Rosier in her, for it is not us that has Gryffindors and squibs.” Regulus set his jaw, and he could feel Gibbon’s eyes bulging.

“My mother is her godmother,” Regulus said stiffly. “And was there at her birth. There is far more proof she is a Rosier than a Black in that. Whilst we may, on occasion, find one member with different attitudes, or who has their magic stolen by one of those filthy mudbloods, we are not blood traitors, and you daren’t suggest it, for Bellatrix is rather more partial to me than she is to you.” He could hardly move far now without creating a scene, but he gave Gibbon a dark look and they quickly switched seats, which Gibbon didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he spent most of his time squirming, as if he couldn’t decide whose arse he was to stick his head up.

 

Fucking Rosiers. Lucky he was a Black, through and through.

 

** October 12th 1975 **

“Not really,” Lily countered, glaring at Amy, who was wearing a rather wicked grin. The ginger leaned closer to her friend. “It’s an expression, Mary, promise.”   
“Only true with Slytherins,” Marlene added, winking dramatically, spinning her wand between her fingers like a baton. Lily raised her eyebrows and settled into the couch, crossing her arms across her chest, where her badge set, gleaming gold and red. Mary was curled up next to her, and rested her head on Lily’s shoulder. The Room of Requirement was filled with girls from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw, of all ages, milling about, making drinks or signs or practising spellwork or even just chatting. It had started off as Christine, Marlene’s sister’s idea, for them to gather and talk about the various inequalities in the wizarding world between men and women, mimicking their older muggle counterparts. Not that they had gotten far, aside from making some pins and sticking a handful of posters up around Hogsmeade (and getting a rare smile from Professor McGonagall).

 

It was out of necessity rather than desire that it had transformed into a duelling club. It had been harder to think about abstract things like equal pay when people were going missing, when the usual harassment had doubled for muggle-borns. Lily had been quite vocal about it; they couldn’t just focus on pureblood girls who’d be safe no matter how long these killings lasted. The boys had escalated to open brawls in the halls,  particularly James. While Lily agreed with what he was defending, she was hesitant to say that beating up anybody who thought differently was correct. That was another good thing about the club; it was a safe way to take your anger out.

 

Admittedly, Marlene McKinnon and Amy Brown weren’t the best to pair up. Both of them had plenty of anger. Amy was an infamous hatstall, the trickiest Gryffindor there’d ever been, the most self-serving, but  _ something  _ had tipped her to red instead of green. Her father was doing a life sentence in Azkaban for torturing muggles and her mother for torturing her father when she found out, putting Amy in the care of her eldest brother, David, who was barely twenty. And Marlene was just explosive - anything set her off, small or large, likely owing to the fact that she had never known her mother - being dropped on your father’s doorstep as a small child wasn’t a very good parenting technique on either’s behalf.

 

“It’ll be okay,” another voice chimed in quietly. Lily turned to look over the back of the seat, and saw Dorcas, hovering nervously, gripping her wand tight. “Cynthia wants to be a Healer when she’s older; she’s picked up some stuff. Marlene won’t get hurt, Mary.”

“See? It’ll be right,” Lily said gently, nudging her friend, but Mary didn’t move from her place on the couch.

Alisha appaired with pink lemonade, handing it out before perching on the armrest of the couch. “So, who’re we bettin’ on?” she asked.

Alice bustled over, making sure they were in the right positions and commenting on their bows. “Right you are then,” she said. “Remember, magic only, one at a time for attacking spells, wait your turn. Got your seconds?” Lily and Mary raised their hands, with Mary rather resembling a ghost in pallor. Alice nodded, clapped her hands together, and left. 

 

Marlene was going first. She drew her wand, standing slightly shorter than Amy, gripping it tight. Alisha slurped her drink. Mary wrapped two fingers around Lily’s pinky. 

“Alright,” Lily said, nodding at the pair. “Go.”

“Expelliarmus!” Marlene started, carving her wand through the air. Amy stood her ground and held on to her wand as it jumped backwards. She used the momentum to swing her arm back over, flicking the tip.

“Flipendo!” Amy shouted, aiming. Mary gasped. It was a rather violent spell to begin with. Marlene skidded backwards, digging her heels in and grabbing a side table to steady herself. Her face had changed as the tone of the match was set. Her eyebrows furrowed lower, teeth gritting. Marlene threw a hex back, and Lily winced. Almost immediately it began taking action, hives bursting onto Amy’s dewy skin, violently red and welted. 

“Fuck you, McKinnon!” Amy scowled. “I was getting laid tonight.”

“Oi, I’m not fucking you,” Marlene retorted. Amy screwed up her pretty face in concentration, and darted towards Marlene, shouting a curse. Marlene ducked, but not quickly enough, and it hit her arm. The limb stretched out grotesquely, flopping onto the ground, growing rapidly, and Marlene let out a stream of swears in her pain. 

“Where’d you learn that?” Lily asked, half-laughing and half-shocked. Mary made a squeaking sound and wrapped herself around the redhead’s arm very tightly. It was then that things turned; Marlene ran forward, leaning back and then throwing her full weight behind the stretched arm, sending her hand, at the very end, flying towards Amy’s face. There was a tremendous  _ clap  _ as contact was made and Amy’s skin turned even redder with the impact, as it had hit a spot covered in hives. 

“Fuck!” Amy shouted, and Alice sent her a death glare, before rushing over to some first years who had been practising the shoelace-tying jinx to reassure them.

 

“You gonna call ‘em off yet, Lils?” Alisha asked, slurping.

“I think you should,” Mary said mildly.

“I’m keeping an eye on it,” Lily said. Amy grabbed Marlene’s extended arm and yanked it, making the body attached stumble forward. Amy braced herself, and then smacked her forehead into Marlene’s. 

“Is that  _ allowed?”  _ Alisha asked. 

“No,” Dorcas said, firm. Lily turned around, looking up at the Ravenclaw, taking a deep breath.

“For now,” Lily said, before turning her gaze back to the two fighters. For that’s what was happening; Marlene had dropped her wand, in favour of hitting Amy around the face. Amy took a deep breath, and then jabbed her wand into Marlene’s shoulder. Marlene shouted and slammed her body into Amy’s, but it was no use. Amy was taller and significantly stronger, and reached to grab a chunk of Marlene’s hair. Lily got to her feet. 

 

“Hey!” she said. “Stop it. Duel over.”

“Yeah, get off,  _ bitch, _ ” Marlene spat, shoving at Amy with her good arm. Amy tightened her grip on Marlene’s hair and walked forwards, forcing her to stumble back, locked within arm’s reach.

“No fistfights,” Lily said, taking a step towards the pair, reaching one hand to where her wand sat in her pocket. “Knock it off, or I’ll get Alice over here.”

“Stop it, you guys!” Mary squeaked. Marlene’s nostrils flared, and she threw her head forwards, with a sickening  _ crack  _ echoing as their foreheads collided. Blood burst from Amy’s face, sticking to her eyebrow, and she lifted her knee. The kneecap connected with Marlene’s stomach and threw her onto her knees.

“Expelliarmus!” Lily shouted, advancing on them, and Amy’s wand flew out of her hand. “Alice, get over here! Now!” Amy threw Marlene onto the ground, letting go of her hair at last, and kicked her in the face. 

“Fuck off!” Marlene growled, spitting blood onto Amy’s shoes, and wrapped her good arm around Amy’s ankle, tugging and bringing her down. Amy’s nose smacked into the floor, and blood ran down her lips. She leaned over Marlene as if to kiss her, and then bit her cheek roughly, piercing the skin. “The fuck? You fucking cannibalistic fucker, fucking get the fuck off me!”

“You started it, bitch,” Amy snarled. Alice was hurrying over, face bright red and flushed, and pointed her wand and the two, muttering something beneath her breath. The two girls flung apart, separated immediately, and Lily crouched by Marlene.

 

“Alright?” she asked, pressing her lips together. Marlene wiped her fingers across the smears of blood on her face, and pointed to her other arm.

“Bit wobbly,” she grinned. “Got a tissue?” Lily quickly conjured one, and held it for her friend to spit into. Marlene choked and coughed, and Lily turned her head quickly, making a face at Mary. The blonde hurried over and began dabbing Marlene’s face, wiping the blood away and making soothing noises.

 

“I’ve told you this is dangerous,” Mary said, frowning at the pair of them. “Getting the bejeezus beaten out of you doesn’t help anybody! This isn’t any different to the Slytherins duelling people in the hall!”   
“It  _ is,  _ Mary,” Lily said. “This is organised, and there’s people to step in, like I did. We need to know how to fight.”

“Why?” Mary argued. “We’re fifteen. If anything does happen, the adults will deal with it.”

“You believe that?” Marlene snorted. “Adults are useless.”

“No, they’re not. My grandfather fought in the war. The muggle one. He helped save us, and he was an adult,” Mary said. “You’re just thinking the worst because you want to be heroes. Stay  _ still,  _ please, there’s a dried bit on your ear.”

 

It wasn’t as if Mary hadn’t said the same thing before, but each word wormed its way into the folds of Lily’s mind. Mary was the staunchest defender of every teacher, every parent, but Lily had doubts she couldn’t quite voice. Could they count on the adults to stand up for them, when it was adults who hated them too? They dismissed Mulciber and Avery’s bullying like it was kids’ stuff, advised them to be brave, they were  _ Gryffindors  _ after all, weren’t they? Like that meant they weren’t allowed to be upset, and besides, what more could you expect of Slytherin boys? And yes, okay, she’d concede that maybe half of the purpose of the club was to socialise, and to have fun and have somewhere to go and to see the disappointed look on Potter’s face when she slipped away to a ‘secret meeting’, but there was a practical element. They had to learn without protective spells all the time, without clear instructions. 

 

They had to learn to be grown-ups, for one day they would be.


End file.
